Tariq al-Hashimi

Tariq al-Hashimi (1942-) was Vice-President of Iraq from 22 April 2006 to 10 September 2012, succeeding Ghazi al-Yawer and Adil Abdul-Mahdi and preceding Nouri al-Maliki.

Biography
Tariq al-Hashimi was born in 1942 in Baghdad, Kingdom of Iraq to the Mashhadan tribe of Sunni Arabs, and from 1959 to 1962 he attended the Baghdad Military Academy. Hashimi became a Lieutenant in an artillery battalion in 1962, and he studied economics at al-Mustansiriya University, getting a master's degree in 1978 after leaving the Iraqi Army. He was involved in the Iraqi Islamic Party, and he opposed federalism in Iraq. He also opposed the removal of Ba'athist policies, and he wanted more Sunnis to be included in the military and police. In December 2006, he formed a multi-sectarian alliance in politics to oppose Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political influence, and he claimed that violence would end once the United States withdrew; he noted the difference between al-Qaeda "insurgence" and the Sunni "resistance", the latter of which was open to peace talks and governing once the US troops left. Later, rumors spread about al-Hashimi being the leader of a hit squad that targeted Shia government officials, and his bodyguards were tortured into confessing their involvement in car bombs and other attacks. On 15 December 2011, the day after the US withdrawal from Iraq and the end of the Iraq War, an arrest warrant for al-Hashimi was issued by Nouri al-Maliki. By April 2012, he was protected in Ankara, Turkey, where he lived in exile as a death sentence was delivered against him in absentia.